Colin Pearce began his commercial life as a salesman and producer for a regional television station in 1976. He quickly discovered that the sales and advertising industries were rife with challenges to anyone’s character.

‘There was a constant battle between self preservation and self promotion; survival and satisfaction,’ he says. ‘Then as I’ve continued in other forms of business I have observed how little attention is paid to character.’

He concludes, ‘Anyone can see we have blurred the edges between right and wrong, adequate and best, acceptable and perfect, and we are paying the price for it in less-than-satisfying service, less-than-respectful children, less-than-noble politicians, and less-than-honourable sports people.’

Character Works was created when Colin's training and speaking colleagues urged him to develop the concepts in his 7th book, The Fox-Proof Chook House in 2003.

Colin completed four pilot trials of The Fox-Proof Chook House seminar with teams consisting of psychologists, a psychiatrist, counselors, marketing consultants, school principals, teachers, trainers, training brokers, designers and most importantly - mothers and fathers!

As part of his research into character issues he studied other character development systems and had his eyes wide opened, particularly by his tour and interviews at the Oklahoma City Jail (home to the infamous Oklahoma Bombers!). Here he experienced the fervour of inmates and officers alike as they expressed their satisfaction with character training.

Colin reported after that visit, 'I was strongly impacted when one lieutenant told me, "Thanks to our character training initiatives I can finally say after 23 years in correctional services I am doing something worthwhile with my life"'

The only thing lacking in the whole market was something uniquely Australian so he developed this character training program, Character Works – road tested on Australians for Australians and New Zealanders.